Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

When Andrey Vinelander (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Ada’s husband) falls ill, his sister Dorothy reads to him old issues of Golos Feniksa (“The Phoenix Voice,” a Russian-language newspaper in Arizona):

Gerard de Vries (“Three Notes on Ada”): In Strong Opinions Nabokov presents the text of Ada’s “first throb, the strange nucleus of the book that was to grow around it,” that “exists as an inset scene right in the middle of the novel” (310. See Ada 356-8). This text is a dream within a dream: Van dreams that someone called Eric Veen writes an essay called “Villa Venus: an Organized Dream” (346, 348).

Describing his life with Charlotte in Ramsdale, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions Miss Phalen and her sister:

The Humberts walked on, sandaled and robed.

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions Hurricane Lolita and his wife’s portrait by Lang:

It was a year of Tempests: Hurricane
Lolita swept from Florida to Maine.
Mars glowed. Shahs married. Gloomy Russians spied.
Lang made your portrait. And one night I died. (ll. 679-682)

In VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947) Hamlet’s famous monologue in Ember’s version begins as follows:

Ubit' il' ne ubit'? Vot est' oprosen.

Vto bude edler: v rasume tzerpieren

Ogneprashchi i strely zlovo roka –

At the end of his Commentary Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) says that he may turn up yet, on another campus, as an old, happy, healthy heterosexual Russian, a writer in exile, sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans anything but his art:

"And you, what will you be doing with yourself, poor King, poor Kinbote?" a gentle young voice may inquire.

At Beardsley Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) plays chess with Gaston Godin (a professor of French):

According to Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad Commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla), the King saw Disa for the first time at a masked ball in his uncle’s palace:

At the beginning of Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions l’if, lifeless tree:

L'if, lifeless tree! Your great Maybe, Rabelais:

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions a hive in which he is locked up:

What moment in the gradual decay

Does resurrection choose? What year? What day?

Who has the stopwatch? Who rewinds the tape?

Are some less lucky, or do all escape?

A syllogism: other men die; but I